Members of the Perkins community had the chance to meet international students at a special Community Hour at Perkins (CHAP) on September 15. Six international students introduced themselves to the two dozen people in attendance via Zoom.
Alice Bonareri Ondieki, a returning student from Kenya, is pursuing her MTS. Ondieki, who is visually impaired, expressed her appreciation to members of the Perkins community for “showing us that you’re our sisters and brothers, and our moms and dads.”
Soo Hyun Suh hails from South Korea. Her two daughters, Grace and Emma, ages 15 and 13, popped into the Zoom to say hello.
Charles Kitua is from Kenya but living in Kansas with his three boys and his wife, Sketer Riungu, a Perkins alum, who is serving a church there.
Benjamin Chimwenga Simba is an ordained minister in Kenya who served as a Methodist bishop from 2015-2018. “I’m happy to be here, but I plan to go back and give back to the community in my home country,” he said.
Faith Mukami Kubai is a returning M.T.S. student from Kenya, a mother of two, and also an ordained minister in the Methodist Church in Kenya.
On the day of the CHAP, Stella Eunbyul Cho celebrated her birthday. She joins the Perkins community from South Korea, following in the footsteps of her brother, JaeJun “Daniel” Cho, also a current student. Stella shared that her Korean name, Eunbyul, means “good star.”
Several faculty and staff members introduced themselves and shared their international experiences. Laura Figura, a former French teacher, donned a beret and offered to speak French with anyone who’d like to converse. Leslie Fuller described her time working and studying in Kenya and earning her master’s degree in the U.K. Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner lived in Oxford and worked with Oxfam; Sze-kar Wan had just returned from a sabbatical in Taiwan. Hugo Magallanes, who is from Mexico, expressed his appreciation for the ways that “international students bring an international flavor to our coursework.”
The students also got an introduction to a topic that incited a very lively American debate: barbecue. Wes Allen asserted the superiority of the Alabama variety (“Barbecue comes from a pig!”) and others argued the merits of barbecue from North Carolina (made with vinegar) and Tennessee. In the Texas camp, Rhonda Chambers touted the superiority of authentic Texas smoked brisket. Chuck Aaron concluded the debate with a diplomatic compromise, stating that he “will eat all barbecue, wherever I’m at.”
Several years ago, while reading a monthly periodical called Vital Speeches of the Day, Dana Rubin noticed something was missing: speeches by women. She emailed the editor to ask why there were so few women’s voices in the publication.
The editor replied that what he published was “descriptive, not prescriptive,” and he couldn’t commit to featuring at least one woman’s speech each month, because that would be “tokenism.”
Rubin didn’t like that answer. That experience launched her on a journey.
“The world has almost completely overlooked women’s speech and women’s oratory,” she said. “I started to look for women’s speeches and discovered there are a lot of them. I became an advocate for the rediscovery of women’s role as rhetoricians.”
Rubin, an award-winning journalist and curator of the Speaking While Female Speech Bank, shared a sampling of her research in a digital gathering on September 16, “From Shelf to Spotlight: The Hidden History of Women’s Speeches,” co-sponsored by the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence and the John Goodwin Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs at SMU. Alyce McKenzie, director of the Center for Preaching Excellence, served as commentator. Madison Lopez, an SMU student and Tower Scholar, moderated.
“Women have been speaking up and contributing their ideas for centuries, even though we have not acknowledged or recognized them,” Rubin said.
This omission means more than just a failure of giving credit where credit is due, Rubin added.
“I am a debate coach,” she said. “I judge high school debate. I believe very passionately about the clash of ideas. I want women to be challenged on the merit of their ideas, not on their looks, or how their voices sound.”
Rubin shared historic images – many of them disturbing — of torture devices used to silence women who “talked too much.” Despite cultural pressures to remain quiet, she said, many women throughout history have spoken up – effectively and eloquently. She gave three examples:
Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891) was a native American who appeared on stage as “Princess Winnemucca” as part a vaudeville troupe billed as a showcase of “Indian royalty.” That show business experience gave her confidence as a public speaker and led her to advocate on behalf of Native Americans. In 1884, she testified before a congressional subcommittee on Indian affairs, describing the mistreatment of her people as they were forced to relocate.
Rubin tracked down the text of that speech at the Humboldt Museum in Winnemucca, Nevada. It had never been published before. She shared how Winnemucca skillfully pled her case for better treatment of her people, with heartbreaking and vivid descriptions of the privations they experienced as they were driven off their land and led on a forced march for 350 miles in the dead of winter.
Winnemucca said: “Women would be coming along crying, and it was not because they were cold for they were used to the cold. It was not because they were sick, for they suffered a great deal. The woman was crying because she was carrying her little frozen child in her arms.”
Jessie Daniel Ames (1883-1972) was a suffragist and civil rights leader born in Palestine, Texas.
Ames founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in 1930 to mobilize white women, who gave hundreds of speeches to law enforcement, community leaders and school principals and at religious organizations and clubs. The women collected data and detailed the horrors of lynching. Often, they would visit a site immediately after a lynching took place to collect evidence. Sometimes, they would alert law enforcement to prevent lynchings from occurring. The women published brochures with action-oriented tips, such as “What One Woman Can Do to Prevent Lynching.”
Rubin described Ames’s arguments, which appealed to the self-interest of the white business community by decrying lynching as “bad advertising.”
“The South is going after big industry at the moment; a lawless, lynch-mob population isn’t going to attract much outside capital,” Ames said in 1939 to the Kentucky branch of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, in Louisville.” The women’s movement helped achieve verifiable results; the number of occurrences of lynching decreased considerably by 1938.
Juanita Craft (1902-1985) was a member of Dallas City Council and an organizer for Black civil rights who traveled all over Texas to set up chapters of the NAACP. A historical plaque commemorates her house on Warren Street in Dallas, which is undergoing restoration to become the Juanita J. Craft Civil Rights Museum & Education Center. Rubin cited an example of Craft’s skillful use of rhetorical technique in a quote from a 1977 commencement speech for graduates of H. Grady Spruce High School in Dallas, in which she told the students, “Each of you seated before me tonight is like a high-yield bond which has finally reached maturity. . . you are capable of yielding the benefits.”
In sharing words from their speeches, Rubin noted how each woman employed carefully chosen rhetorical strategies to make her case: Winnemucca used the power of personal experience; Ames used the power of facts and data; Craft used the power of metaphor.
Rubin hopes that the rediscovery of voices of women like Craft, Ames and Winnemucca will inspire respect for women’s voices of the past, present and yet to come.
“A speech is not just words – it’s an act calling on the audience to act,” said Rubin. “These three women used their voices for change, and they were just three of thousands of women who have done this.”
Those were a few of the words that students shared in response to the Beyoncé Mass, a Christian worship service inspired by the life and music of its namesake, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Students are engaging with the Mass this semester as part of the Seminary Singers curriculum in the Master of Sacred Music program, taught by Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel.
“Not everyone likes the Mass,” said Steuernagel, who is Director of the Sacred Music Program.
“And I’ve told them, ‘You don’t have to.’ It’s about triggering a process of reflection.”
The Mass was curated by the Rev. Yolanda Norton, a Hebrew Bible scholar and the H. Eugene Farlough Chair of Black Church Studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary. When it debuted at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco two years ago, almost 900 people turned up for a midweek service that normally attracts a few dozen people.
“The Mass says to young black girls, ‘You are part of what God had in mind when, during creation, God said, ‘It is good,’” Norton told the New York Times in an article about the worship service. “By making the stories and realities of young black women and girls central components of this liturgical art, we’re affirming their realities in a world that is persistent and dogged in its attempts to reject them.”
Creators call the Beyoncé Mass a “womanist worship service” showcasing how Black women “find their voice, represent the image of God and create spaces for liberation.” The service includes renditions of Beyoncé songs such as “Survivor” and “Flaws and All” combined with the readings of sacred texts. (Beyoncé calls St. John’s United Methodist in Houston her home church.)
“We don’t do frozen chosen here,” Norton told worshippers at a performance of the Mass at Lincoln Center’s Millennium Stage in March. “This is not your grandma’s church.”
The Seminary Singers engagement began on September 11, as the class watched an online performance of the Mass, commissioned by a cohort of several theology schools led by Dr. Stephanie Budwey from Vanderbilt Divinity School. Next, the students joined in a virtual conversation with Norton and some of the singers in the Black Girl Magic Ensemble, who perform the Mass. Now the students are discussing their experience and preparing their reflections for an online panel presentation via Facebook Live, which will take place in late October or early November.
“I like the way that the service is very accepting of people who typically may get shunned in church,” said Julie Boudreaux, (MSM ’22), in the class’s September 24 meeting.
“Seeing the Mass, I realized some of my own biases between sacred and secular,” said student Allison Shutt (MSM ’21). “Initially, I thought, ‘This is going to be terrible, I’m not going to be comfortable at all,’ but the way that [Norton] crafted the different pieces, you could see the theology running through … which I really appreciated.”
Steuernagel shared how this curriculum helps fill a gap that arose from the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the Seminary Singers ensemble exists to help MSM students develop their professional skills – conducting, performing and working with a variety of musical styles – they would normally participate in creating services as part of worship life of the university, such as the Perkins Advent Worship service – “None of which we can do in person this year,” Steuernagel said.
“This was an opportunity to engage in an online aspect of ministry and the current conversation connected to Black Lives Matter and the current political and social life of North America,” he said.
He added that the class has engaged not only with the content and meaning of the Mass but also with the technical aspects of how it’s performed for online audiences.
Lucas Eaton (MSM ’21) liked the way the Mass integrated music, texts and other media in its digital presentation. Another student, Seth Luna (MSM ’22), used the word “prophetic” to describe the Mass.
“I was expecting to be pretty uncomfortable with it,” he said. “As an Anglican, when you start throwing the words ‘Mass’ and ‘Beyoncé’ together, it’s like, oh no … I was expecting it to be way out there, and it wasn’t way out there at all for me.”
Steuernagel notes, “Yolanda is emphatic in stressing that it’s a worship service not meant as a concert,” he said. “She doesn’t cite Beyoncé a lot. It’s more about the connection between the way that Beyoncé has developed this advocacy for black female empowerment and woven it into her career.”
To those who say the Mass might be “too political,” Steuernagel says that’s not in line with historic Christianity.
“Today we construe worship to be this nonperishable, pasteurized thing,” he said. “But first century baptism was highly political. It was a matter of realigning yourself away from Rome. If you want a church deeply engaged with human life, the Beyoncé Mass is a way to call attention to a significant problem.”
As a precedent for worship that draws from pop culture, Steuernagel cited the celebration of the 60th anniversary last year of the first liturgical jazz service, which took place at Perkins 60 years ago.
“Perkins has been involved in that kind of thing since the late 50s,” he said.
Some of the students expressed mixed feelings about the Mass and its presentation.
“I very much enjoyed the concept of what going on, but the actual execution, I was not that into,” said Cameron Norman (MSM ’22). “I just didn’t enjoy the music.”
Garth Baker-Fletcher (MSM ‘212) shared the importance of Beyoncé for his daughters and other female members of his family.
“I’ve watched them listen intently to what Beyoncé said,” he said. “It’s extraordinary to me how much Destiny’s Child meant to them. You have to understand that it was the Christian-European civilization that problematized and objectified the bodies [of women of color.]”
That exchange of perspectives is exactly what Steuernagel had in mind.
“Being able to sit down for a conversation with people sharing different perspectives is a beneficial practice, no matter what,” Steuernagel said.
The Perkins community doesn’t just feel like family for JaeJun “Daniel” Cho. Family ties led him to the Perkins campus, and now, one of his siblings is a fellow Perkins student.
Cho, a second-year M.Div. student, grew up in South Korea, the son of two pastors in the Korean Methodist Church (KMC). Having heard about Perkins since he was a child, coming here was a dream come true.
“My father wanted to study at Perkins 30 years ago, but Perkins was not freely open to international students at the time,” he said. When Cho applied to three U.S. theological schools, Perkins was the first to notify him of its acceptance. That sealed the deal.
“Thankfully, I was accepted to three schools, with good financial aid offers, but Perkins was the first school which recognized my possibility, so I could not make Perkins disappointed,” he said.
Now, another member of his family is here too. His younger sister, Eunbyul “Stella” Cho arrived in Dallas just a few weeks ago and is working on an M.Div. at Perkins as well.
“My sister and I are really grateful to Perkins School of Theology for giving us an opportunity to study at Perkins,” he said. “We believe that God rewarded us for my parents’ ministry and sacrifice through Perkins.”
Answering a Call
Daniel (right) dances in a Korean-language worship video for preschool children.
Cho says it was his father’s example that inspired him to answer the call to ministry.
“My father helped others in need, such as the poor and the sick,” he said. “Thanks to my him, my house was always full of people when we were eating, and they became my family. In South Korea, family means eating together.”
Life as a pastor’s son, however, wasn’t always easy. His family never had much money. They often took in people in their home who needed medical attention. When his father’s good works drew the attention of a few large, wealthy churches, they tried to recruit him as pastor. But his father declined.
“To be honest, I wanted my father to accept their requests because I was tired of being poor,” Cho said. “He was a pastor, but I was not. However, he replied that while there are many people that wish to go to big churches with many members, there are very few who wish to go to hard and difficult ones, and thus, he could not leave his community.”
Over time, Cho said, he realized the wisdom of his father’s choices and how they gave him true happiness.
“I learned real ministry and real love from him,” Cho said.
Cho’s ultimate goal is to become a preacher who can reach people of all ages.
“I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ should be delivered to everyone in the world,” he said. “In order for the gospel to speak to people’s hearts, preachers have to be able to easily deliver the gospel to people, no matter who they are, no matter how old they are, and no matter how they are educated.”
Cho definitely has learned to speak to younger people. As a youth minister in the KMC, he is currently creating a series of lively, engaging online worship videos for preschool-aged children.
“Usually, female Sunday school teachers lead praise with dance,” he said. “However, I wanted to break the mold, so I danced, praising God. Thankfully, the children really love this.”
(The videos are in Korean, but the spirit and enthusiasm come through clearly; check one out here.)
Life at Perkins
At Perkins, Hebrew Bible is a key area of academic interest for Cho.
“The Hebrew Bible is a foundation of Christianity; when we read the Hebrew Bible carefully, it could enrich our Christian faith,” he said. “Also, I realized that Korean Christians are unwilling to read the Hebrew Bible because the Hebrew Bible is difficult to understand. They are struggling with law in the Old Testament. Thus, I decided to study the Hebrew Bible to teach Korean Christians easily.”
On the extracurricular side, Cho has enjoyed participating in Ministry Dallas – which gave him his first glimpse of Dallas when he arrived last fall – and now serves as Vice President of the Perkins Student Association. He has also enjoyed the monthly events sponsored by the Financial Literacy Program at Perkins.
“Each month, Jean Nixon prepared wonderful guest speakers to teach students how to use and save money wisely,” he said. “Thanks to this program, I could learn financial literacy skills. I even earned a $500 gift card as a reward because I attended 10 events out of 10!”
Cho says he particularly appreciates the diversity of the Perkins community. South Korea is a homogeneous society, he notes, and Koreans don’t have much experience in welcoming foreigners who are culturally and ethnically different. Refugees from Yemen and North Korea have fled to Korea in recent years, which has created fear and hostility among many Koreans.
“One of my classmates asked me how I feel from being a majority in Korea to a minority in the United States,” he said. “I was so glad because I got out of a homogenous community and I feel the dynamism of this diverse community at Perkins. As a member of a global village, I am learning how to communicate, understand, and love others who are different from me at Perkins!”
For his personal spiritual practice, Cho maintains a rigorous routine. He follows the worship schedule of the Korean Methodist Church, attending daily morning devotions at 5:30 a.m., and Wednesday and Friday evening worship services. He also practices contemplative prayer three times daily, at morning, noon and afternoon. (He once shared his tips from his contemplative prayer practice with the Perkins community at a Community Hour at Perkins (C.H.A.P.)) He tries to read through the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, once a year.
Cho also begins each day reciting his favorite Bible passage, in Hebrew: Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
“Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ,” he said, citing Romans 10:17. “Confessing God’s uniqueness (oneness) is the heart of Christianity. And Jesus commanded ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, which is the first and greatest commandment.’ When we truly love God, we can truly love ourselves. When we truly love ourselves, we can truly love our neighbors.”
This photo was taken the first time Aaron preached in Spanish at Gracia Viva in Dallas. Pastora Isabel Marquez (right) invited him to preach; his teacher from Costa Rica (where Aaron attended a Spanish language immersion program) helped him translate the sermon.
Many faculty members are challenged to stay connected with the “outside” world beyond the walls of academia. For Charles “Chuck” Aaron, the challenge tends to run in the opposite direction. As co-director of the Intern Program at Perkins, he has been — at least until the pandemic struck –out and about, visiting churches and other institutions where students were interning or may intern in the future.
“My bigger challenge has been keeping up with the academic world,” he said.
Still, Aaron seems fairly productive in the scholarly realm. He has published two books recently and is working on another. In September, Wipf and Stock released Preaching in/and the Borderlands, which Aaron co-edited along with J. Dwayne Howell.
“The book arose out of a panel presentation that we sponsored in 2016 at the Society of Biblical Literature,” he said. (At the time, Aaron was chair of the SBL’s program unit in Biblical studies and homiletics.) “Afterward, Dr. Howell and I decided that the papers submitted for the panel needed to be available beyond that presentation. The book offers a variety of perspectives on preaching and immigration and It fills a need, because I’m not aware of anything else out there like it. We think this can be a valuable resource for the church and very timely.”
Cokesbury also recently published a Bible study that Aaron wrote, with the theme of Encounter and focusing on salvation and what it means through example and explanation.
Aaron is also working on co-editing yet another book, on preaching and the wisdom literature, a festschrift for Alyce McKenzie. It’s a collection of essays and sermons contributed by colleagues and friends as a celebration of her career. Several Perkins faculty members are involved in the project. Jaime Clark-Soles is co-editor; O. Wesley Allen is a contributor. Professor emeritus John C. Holbert contributed a chapter, and Angel J. Gallardo contributed a sermon.
Aaron heading out for a walk/light jog in solidarity with Ahmaud Arbery.
An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, Aaron also preaches by invitation. That was more frequent before COVID, but he’s scheduled to speak on October 11 at Casa Linda United Methodist in Dallas. Aaron is a Perkins grad himself, having earned his M.Div. in 1985, in addition to his B.A. from Lambuth College, a master’s in counseling at the University of Memphis and a Ph.D. at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Va.
Before the pandemic changed everything, Aaron spent much of his time visiting the churches and other agencies or institutions where Perkins students served in internships. This year, it’s all happening by Zoom. Among the places he’s shepherded Perkins interns: Dallas Bethlehem Center, a ministry in South Dallas where the intern worked with children of color on lower socioeconomic scale; United Methodist Women in New York, where the intern was based and traveled around the country giving presentations on various issues of UMW concerns; and the North Texas Conference’s Zip Code Project, where the student worked in a Dallas area neighborhood where poverty is most concentrated.
“This job has afforded me the opportunity to meet many different pastors and learn about a wide variety of ministries, including hospitals, nonprofit ministries and many different kinds of churches,” he said.
Research Interests
Biblical Studies. Apocalyptic Literature, Prophets. Pentateuch. Preaching from the Old Testament. Prophetic Preaching, Prophetic Ministry. Homiletics.
Favorite Bible Verse
Isaiah 55:10-11: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Said Aaron: “That verse has sustained me in ministry all along. I trust that, the work we do, God will use it for something.”
Aaron playing classical guitar at House of Blues as part of a recital for Guitar Center, where he takes lessons.
Book on His Nightstand Now
The Julian Way by Justin Hancock, a history of the church’s ministry with persons who are differently abled. (Hancock, a Perkins grad, is an ordained deacon and uses a wheelchair.)
Fantasy Dinner Party
Aaron would invite Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter, the martyred Bishop Óscar Romero and the late virtuoso classical guitarist Andrés Segovia. “I’d ask them, ‘How, in the midst of all the injustice of the world, do you keep from giving in to despair?” he said. “How do you keep going in the midst of frustration?” Three of the four guests experienced that challenge; Aaron added Segovia because he’s taking classical guitar lessons himself and speaks a little Spanish.
Family
Wife Sandra Aaron is a computer programmer.
Hobbies
Aaron works out with a Soloflex exercise machine. In the past, he ran 5Ks, and hopes to get back into that again soon.
Question He’d Ask at the Pearly Gates
“How in the world are we all going to live together once we get up there? We’re so divided down here, how are we going to live in community up there?”
Personal Spiritual Practice
In addition to walking and exercising, Aaron enjoys singing hymns while playing the piano, but not with an audience. “I only do this where nobody can hear me,” he said. “I don’t sing that well.”
Something Most People Don’t Know About Him
In middle school, Aaron was a drummer in a Monkees cover band.
Beverly and Robert Fowler, parents of Dr. Alyce McKenzie.
The Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU has received a $250,000 gift from the Robert H. and Beverly U. Fowler Foundation of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The gift will allow the Center to launch innovative initiatives and continue its current programs from a foundation of financial stability in years to come.
“In these tough times, good preaching has never been more crucial,” said Dr. Alyce M. McKenzie, Director of the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU. “We are grateful for this gift, which will allow us to continue to inspire and equip those whom God has called to the preaching task through the work of the Center.”
The Robert H. and Beverly U. Fowler Foundation, established by Dr. McKenzie’s parents in 1998, generally gives gifts to non-profit organizations in central Pennsylvania that work against hunger and support literacy and the arts. However, the trustees – Dr. McKenzie’s siblings, Susanna Weil, Robert Fowler, Jr., and Wade Fowler – saw an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the life and vitality of the United Methodist Church through this grant. They view it as a way of honoring their parents’ legacy by investing in a venture that combines elements of those things that were most important to them: their Christian faith, education, history, and community service.
Founded in 2013, the Center’s mission is to “enhance transformative preaching in local congregations.” Its motto is “Share the Story, Shape the World!” The Center forms and supports preaching peer groups of pastors in the field, pairs experienced pastors as mentors for Introduction to Preaching students, and sponsors continuing education events for students and area clergy. Recently, it has increased its online resources to offer webinars and a series of informative interviews called “What’s A Preacher to Do?” that focuses on the challenge of preaching in a “twin pandemic” of COVID-19 and systemic racism.
The Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU was originally funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of its Preaching Initiative Grants given to several seminaries in 2013. That Endowment has cited the Center as a stellar example of what it hoped to accomplish through the grant.
Robert and Beverly Fowler, lifelong Methodists and natives of North Carolina, met at Guilford College in the early 1950s. Their shared love of history and literature inspired a publishing venture that became Historical Times, Inc. In the early 1960s Robert (1926-2002) turned his passionate interest in the Civil War into a magazine titled Civil War Times Illustrated just in time for the centennial of the Battle of Gettysburg. As time went on other magazines were added to the repertoire including American History Illustrated, Early American Life, British History Illustrated, Fly Fisherman and Bow Hunter. Along the way he wrote seven historical novels, most notably Jim Mundy which many critics considered on par with The Red Badge of Courage. Beverly Fowler, who passed away in January of 2020, was not only an invaluable partner in these enterprises, but also the author of a popular weekly human-interest column in the Perry County Times for 30 years, and a supporter of libraries and literacy in central Pennsylvania.
In a letter to Wade Fowler, retired newspaper editor and the executor of the Fowler Foundation, Perkins Development Director Dr. John Martin wrote: “Your gift is a sign of confidence, not only in your sister Alyce’s leadership and accomplishments, but in the importance of the ministry and mission of Perkins School of Theology in these changing times. The Center not only enhances the preaching skills of current students, it also continues to be instrumental in improving the level of communication in many United Methodist conferences and in other denominational groups. Thank you for your generosity to SMU, Perkins School of Theology, and the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence.”
In addition to directing the Center, Dr. McKenzie serves as the Le Van Professor of Preaching and Worship at Perkins and as an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at SMU. A prolific author and popular teacher, preacher, and workshop leader, she is a former president of the Academy of Homiletics, and in 2015 was chosen to offer the prestigious Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School.
In directing the Center, she works closely with her colleague Dr. O. Wesley Allen, Jr., Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics at Perkins who, in her words, “acts as an invaluable consultant in both the visioning and implementation of the Center’s programs. “
Reflecting on the gift to the Center from the Fowler Foundation, Dr. McKenzie says, “I’m honored by my siblings’ generosity and look forward to living out our Center’s motto ‘Share the Story, Shape the World’ in the years to come.”
One theologian calls the Rev. Carlton R. “Sam” Young “Mr. Music of United Methodism.” Young, who was Director of the Master of Sacred Music Program at Perkins and associate professor of church music from 1964-1975, has been a big name for more than half a century as a composer, arranger, scholar and editor. He edited The Methodist Hymnal (1966) and The United Methodist Hymnal (1989). He directed the music for nine General Conferences, including the 1968 Uniting Conference that created The United Methodist Church. And now, at age 94 and despite having multiple myeloma, Young is out with a new collection of sheet music. Read the UMNS profile by Sam Hodges.
Affirming Peaceful Protest
In a recent op-ed in the Austin-American Statesman, Jack Levison reflected on Nazis resisters Hans and Sophie Scholl, and the legacy and importance of peaceful protest. “Peaceful protesters around our country and around the globe are routinely attacked, teargassed and sometimes apprehended by unidentifiable agents,” he writes. “In this charged and polarized modern atmosphere, civility has surrendered, too often allowing violent responses to nonviolent resistance.” The column also appeared in The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and Baptist News Global. Levison is W. J. A. Power Professor of Old Testament Interpretation and Biblical Hebrew at Perkins.
19th Amendment Exhibit
Recently, DeGolyer Library opened “Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes: An Exhibition Marking the 100th Anniversary of the Passage of the 19th Amendment.” The exhibit features more than 100 objects from the collections of Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, Professor of Pastoral Care and Pastoral Theology, and Helen LaKelly Hunt, and the DeGolyer Library. The exhibit documents the history of the women’s rights movement, from the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) through the 19th century and early 20th century, with emphasis on the roles women played first in the abolitionist movement and then in the suffrage movement. The online exhibit also includes a blog on “Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes” that features videos from Stevenson-Moessner and Susanne Scholz, Professor of Old Testament.
New Book by Charles Aaron
Chuck Aaron, Co-Director of the Intern Program at Perkins, is co-editor of a new book, Preaching in/and the Borderlands (Wipf & Stock, September 2020) along with J. Dwayne Howell. The book, a series of essays, addresses issues for churches to consider as they seek to better understand how to respond to immigration and examines biblical, ethical, theological, and homiletical areas of the topic. Contributions come from experienced pastors, theologians, legal experts, and activists, including Perkins grads Rebecca Hensley (M.T.S., ’03, Th. M. ’17), the Rev. Dr. Michael Waters (D. Min. ’12, M. Div. ’06), and the Rev. Owen Ross (M.Div., ’02). “The essays presented in this book provide solid biblical and theological grounds to understand borderland dynamics—particularly the plight of those who struggle and suffer in these lands,” writes Hugo Magallanes, Associate Professor of Christianity and Cultures in a book review. “May God helps us, as we read this book, to embrace our moral responsibility to welcome the stranger in our midst.”
Dallas Gingles Column
In an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Gingles, Associate Director, Houston-Galveston Extension Program, reflected on teaching theology at Houston Methodist Hospital, before the hospital was locked down in the fight for the pandemic. When teaching in the hospital, he reminds students that “in rooms just above ours people are dying and being born.” He recalled stories of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who was so engrossed in a lecture that he failed to notice the sound of Luftwaffe planes flying overhead, and Karl Barth, who delivered a series of famous lectures in burned out buildings in Bonn, Germany, to a group of young German men who were “learning to smile again” after returning from war. Gingles expressed appreciation for the hospital’s commitment to hospitality and for caring for all people. “In a society like ours that is fragmented, fragile, territorial, and terrified, we can learn from Houston Methodist how to love the world that God so loved, and in so doing, how to smile again,” he wrote. Read the entire column in the Dallas Morning News (subscription only) here.
Can Ethics Be Taught?
“Can we, should we, teach ethics in the modern university?” That was the question tackled in a September 25 Facebook Live event hosted by SMU Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility. The program featured D. Stephen Long, Maguire Chair in Ethics, and Rita Kirk, William F. May Endowed Director of SMU’s Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility. Long is also the author of “Can Ethics Be Taught? Connecting the Classroom to Everyday Life,” a chapter in the newly released book Ethics at the Heart of Higher Education. “On the one hand, we assume students already have some sense of ethics before they arrive, which is why we hold them accountable for their behavior from their first day on campus,” he writes. “On the other hand, we also assume that students should reflect on ethics across the curriculum, and that assumes that ethics needs to and can be taught. How do we make sense of both these assumptions?” This talk was part of the Maguire Ethics Center series entitled Sound Ethics.
South Korea native Sun-Ah Kang (MTS, ’13) vividly remembers the moment God called her to champion women in ministry. “When I was in high school, I went to this retreat and the guest speaker was a male, very old, retired pastor,” Kang recounted. “He talked about how sin came to the world through women. He said that all women have to apologize for their sins… So, that’s how I got really interested in learning the Bible… I thought ‘How in the world can we have such an extremely, violent oppressing teaching?’” Now, as part of the Angella P. Current-Felder Woman of Color Scholars program, Kang is breaking down gendered barriers in theology as a doctoral candidate at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Read her story featured on the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM) website’s Women of Color Scholars’ series here.
“Pastor to the Police”
When police officers say, “I’ve got your six,” it means they are watching out for each other. The Rev. Heather Gates (MTS, ’13), chaplain for the Galveston Police Department, wants to go a step further. She looks out for the officers’ hearts and minds. “That’s what I’m here for,” she said. Read the story in the Texas Annual Conference website here.
Questioning the Cross and Flame
Is it time to retire the United Methodist insignia? The Rev. Edlen Cowley (M. Div. ’99) called to replace the Cross and Flame of The United Methodist Church, a proposal now backed by the North Texas Conference. Rev. Cowley wrote a column this summer urging a move away from the Cross and Flame, saying the emblem conjures for him and other African Americans the terror of Ku Klux Klan cross burnings. At its annual meeting on Sept. 19, the North Texas Conference voted 558-176 to submit to the 2021 General Conference legislation drafted by Cowley that would begin the process of changing the insignia. Cowley is pastor of Fellowship United Methodist Church in the Dallas suburb of Trophy Club, and an alternate North Texas Conference delegate to the 2021 Jurisdictional Conference. Read the UM News story here.
Ubuntu Music Project
As founder of the Ubuntu Music Project, Nicole Melki (M.A.M. ‘17) works to give Hispanic immigrant children daily music lessons and academic tutoring. An urban ministry based in East Dallas, Ubuntu serves Hispanic immigrant children living below the poverty line and at-risk of dropping out of school or being pulled into the school-to-prison-pipeline. The Ubuntu Music Project partners with Grace United Methodist Church. Each day after school, more than 45 Ubuntu elementary school children receive violin instruction that empowers them to play at an exceptional level, as well as homework and reading support. Every Ubuntu program graduate has been accepted into competitive Magnet Arts middle schools and Talented and Gifted Academies, rerouting their trajectories to high-quality high schools like Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts and the path to higher education. Read the story on the North Texas Conference website here.
Obituary
Rev. George Holcombe
The Rev. George Holcombe (M.Th. ’59) passed away July 30, 2020, at the age of 87, after a three-year struggle with pancreatic cancer. Rev. Holcombe served churches in the Central Texas, Southwest Texas, Louisiana, and North Texas Conferences. He finished his active ministry as a Missionary to the Philippines for the General Board of Global Ministries. Memorial services are pending. Cards and notes may be sent to his wife, Wanda Holcombe, at 201 E. 17th Street, Georgetown, TX 78626.
I mentioned in a recent Perspective article that my wife’s memory is superior to mine. There is one thing I do seem to be good at remembering, however: song lyrics. Play almost any top-20 hit from the 60s or 70s, and the words will probably come right back to me. There are a great many things I would prefer to be good at rather than this, but I suppose you have to be thankful for your gifts, whatever they might be.
Whether or not you share this peculiar aptitude, you might recall one particular line from Bob Seger’s 1976 song “Against the Wind”: “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” This cleverly flips the common adage, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” Thinking back on my own seminary career, I am hard pressed to think of things I wish I still didn’t know, though there are a great many things I wish I hadn’t forgotten. (At one point, I could recite in order the list of all the rulers of Israel and Judah. Please don’t ask me to do it now.) On the other hand, it is easy for me to think of things I wish I had fully understood from the beginning. Of course, the fact that I eventually did learn them is testament to the education I received, however belated the attainment.
It is common for one generation to attempt to pass on to the next things they hope will give their heirs a head start. In that spirit at the beginning of a new academic year, here is a short list of things I wish I had fully grasped from the outset of my own theological education:
1) Master’s studies are the foundation, not the whole building. There is no more presumptuously named degree than the “Master of Divinity.” Few great things can be mastered in three years—and certainly not divinity! Ideally, a theological education sets one on a lifetime course of study. Those few years in the classroom are less about the total accumulation of facts than they are about the development of perspective and the cultivation of tools and interests for decades of learning.
2) There are many things I will never know. In some respects, I expected too much of my theological education, and in other respects too little. Prior to starting seminary, I had read (indeed, color-coded) the entire Bible, memorized dozens of verses, attended countless Bible studies, and read a few dozen books on subjects related to Christian faith. I supposed that my formal theological education would more or less close whatever gaps existed in my knowledge. Instead, it tended rather to expose them. Moreover, I slowly came to realize that there were things I simply could not know, no matter how much I studied. I would love, for example, to be able to state definitively who wrote the Pastoral Epistles. I have an opinion, to be sure, but I know that it is only an opinion. Sufficient evidence does not exist to make a definitive case. The gradual procurement of such “epistemological modesty” is not the unique province of those studying theology. Intellectual humility is often the mark of true learning, whatever the field.
3) Good answers require good questions. We are all limited by our ignorance of our ignorance. Seminary helped me to see how little I truly knew. More often than not, I had fallen into the trap of taking account of only a fraction of the relevant evidence, usually because, unwittingly, I was not looking for it. We learn to ask better questions most often by being exposed to the questions and viewpoints of others. It is what we take for granted that most easily leads us astray. Over time, I came to see that the people who ask the most broad-ranging and penetrating questions nearly always arrive at the most insightful and satisfying answers.
4) Do not confuse unintelligibility with profundity. Theological students may be tempted to write long, complex sentences filled with imposing—and, presumably, impressive—technical jargon. I recall reading papers from some fellow students and being utterly perplexed as to what they were saying. It took me a while to realize that it is vastly harder to write clearly than it is to write incoherently. Obscurantism is often mistaken for intelligence.
I was for a time a college chaplain. Interestingly, the professors of theology who came to preach (including Rowan Williams, later Archbishop of Canterbury, and the theologian N. T. Wright) addressed the students directly, with clear and unforced, unadorned speech. The problem came when persons from outside appeared to feel the need to justify their presence in the college pulpit. We didn’t need to be impressed; we needed to hear God’s word.
5) Good writing is hard work. For the first time, I had professors who gave serious attention to my writing and were willing to expose its weaknesses in detail. In so doing, they forced me to think at a higher level. To this day, I seldom come to clarity of thought by any means other than writing. And writing clearly can be exceptionally difficult work.
As a professor, I have witnessed the same phenomenon countless times. Few students arrive at graduate school having had their written work carefully and thoroughly critiqued. The students I have most appreciated are those who took this criticism seriously, who realized that they were embarking on careers as professional communicators and so were eager to improve their craft.
6) Everybody has something to teach me. I arrived at seminary too oppositional, with too many conventional and convenient stereotypes. Slowly, as I got to know others as people and not simply as positions, that began to change. Being in the company of a diverse group of fellow students encouraged broader understanding and greater empathy. It is not so much that I came to think different things than that I came to think in different ways. In particular, I could now understand why someone with divergent life experience might reasonably come to divergent conclusions. Almost inevitably, such a shift in perspective also leads us to realize that we have far more in common with others than we had imagined.
What most disturbs me about the present state of the church and our country is the fact that we have moved so far in exactly the opposite direction. Those with opposing perspectives are widely regarded as evil, stupid, or both. Ironically, the proliferation of media has allowed us to isolate ourselves in ideological foxholes, from which we lob grenades at the other side. At best, this is a recipe for poor and, at worst, disastrous thinking.
7) Character matters more than grades. I already must have sensed this as a seminary student, but the truth of it became unmistakable once I became a seminary professor. There is no simple correlation between students’ GPA and their potential for fruitful ministry. I have seen outstanding students founder in the pastorate and less stellar students flourish. Of course, that is no excuse for academic laziness. We honor God by using our capabilities to their fullest. But we should not fool ourselves into thinking that academic excellence is all that matters, or that it is what matters most in ministry. Ideally, of course, one hopes for excellence of both heart and mind.
8) Vocation is more important than career. This applies to one’s time in a theological school but is especially relevant to the years after when one may be tempted to envy fellow clergy who win more attention and seem to be living the life we imagined for ourselves. Ever so subtly, the focus shifts from serving the other to advancing the self. A bishop once told me, “Many of the most unhappy clergy in this conference are in their mid-to-late 50s. They’ve come to realize that their career aspirations will not be fulfilled, that someone else got the appointment they had worked for and thought they deserved.”
One of the most delightful aspects of teaching theological students is that few of them have yet fallen into this trap. They have not, as the book of Revelation put it, “abandoned their first love” (2:4). If they can maintain their focus on vocation and not career, they likely never will.
9) Ministry is a present as well as a future calling. While in seminary, you might imagine that ministry is something off in the future for which you are preparing. That is true in a sense, but only in a sense. A theological school is an excellent place to practice, not simply to prepare for, ministry. You do not magically become a different person at the moment of graduation or ordination. Who you are in seminary is essentially who you will be when you take that first full-time pastoral appointment. So, how you behave toward fellow students as well as professors and staff should be little different from how you anticipate behaving toward future parishioners. You don’t put on the role when you put on the robe.
10) Ministry is more gift than attainment. Surely, I already knew this on some level, but it has become increasingly evident over the years. To be self-focused is a dead end. You find yourself by giving yourself to others, and ministry offers innumerable opportunities to do just that. It is an incredible and unearned privilege to be allowed into people’s lives at so many significant moments. Yes, there is tedium and frustration in almost any form of ministry, but that is true of most jobs. To be called to ministry is a special grace, an exceptional opportunity to live close to the center of life’s meaning.
It is impossible to say what the future has in store for higher education. A flurry of speculation and predictions abound on best practices and how to respond to the COVID-19 crisis for the fall 2021 recruitment season.
At Perkins, our approach is strategic and centers on demonstrable success. Our aim remains to increase the number of prospects who are a fit for Perkins, ultimately matriculate and graduate so that they can play a role in making contributions wherever they may land for the transformation of the world.
Adaptation to new practices is essential. Flexibility to quickly implement creative approaches for increasing our pool of prospective students is our focus. We are keenly aware of the need to remain accessible to prospective students. This is especially true for the students in geographic locations where we will no longer, for the foreseeable future, be physically present. The data we have (2018-2020 spring and fall enrollment) provides benchmarks for future recruiting, thus strengthening our potential for more accurate intentionality. Virtual travel and events, a new communications strategy, email campaigns, and virtual, geographic marketing is driving our 2021 enrollment management plan. Our currently enrolled students have proven to be strong allies for recruitment. We’re looking forward to tapping our new fall 2020 students for recruitment initiatives, as well. They will be a strong support as we navigate a new normal in recruitment, expanding our connection with prospects for vocational ministry.
While our plan incorporates our former targeted areas, new trends (and places) of recruiting and communicating are part of the new plan. Recruitment fairs, conferences, Wesley Foundation events, on-campus visits, informational sessions, and the like, are taking on a new life nationally and internationally. The Office of Enrollment Management will participate as schedules and resources allow. Be assured that we are fully vested in high visibility and participation.
We are hopeful and inspired by the direction we are moving. With new initiatives underway, the Office of Enrollment Management staff is encouraged that this could be a very strong year for recruitment. The pandemic offers us new opportunities, and we are committed to lean into an unknown future that allows us to consider new practices for recruitment. Flexibility, adaptability, and accessibility are keys to our success.
